'My Grandchild', 1865.

Description

Albumen print by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) of Archie (born 1863) aged 2 years and 3 months. Archie was the son of Cameron's eldest son, Eugene Hay Cameron and his wife Carolyn Catherine Browne. Cameron often used him as a model for the infant Jesus in Biblical tableaux. Cameron's photographic portraits are considered among the finest in the early history of photography. She set up a private studio at her Isle of Wight home at the age of 48, after her daughter gave her a camera, and she became expert at using the collodion wet-plate process. She used friends, servants and neighbours as subjects, including the scientists Charles Darwin and John Herschel, and the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. Much of her work reflects the Pre-Raphaelite painting style which was popular at the time.